ABSTRACT
Plants endure a variety of environmental stresses, biotic as well as abiotic, during their growth cycle. Abiotic factors affecting plant growth and performance include cold, heat, salinity, and drought. Plant adjustments to cold environments are related to both the extremes or to the gradual influences of low temperatures, the former expressed through the development of resistance to freezing temperatures, an attribute related to plant phenology and acclimation. Temperate plants, in an effort to reduce the negative effects of winter temperatures, synchronize their cold stress vulnerable reproductive stages with the favorable environmental conditions of the spring and summer. Cold stress response in plants is a highly complex process that is mediated through a series of physiological and biochemical modifications that arise from alterations of several gene expression patterns. Galactinol synthase is a key enzyme in the synthesis of raffinose oligosaccharides, which catalyzes the first committed step in raffinose synthesis.
